THIS IMMEDIATELY IMPROVES THE ENTIRE TROPE! I had really disliked Hanahaki because it’s almost like the other person - if they’re a good person - is sorta blackmailed into either having feelings or being responsible for your death which is Not Romantic, but I can totally get down for FEELIGS made into an aggravating physical metaphor that you could potential deal with if you’d either confront them or get therapy or something.
Prof you fucking genius is it seasonal? Like it happens in spring cause the flowers bloom? Imagine it hitting hanahaki season and looking around a room and seeing whose missing, who’s out on sick leave, thr curiosity the DRAMA
This puts the song “I Won’t Say (I’m in Love)” in a completely new light.
I am in awe at how much this tweak changes the trope of hanahaki from something I quietly detest from a distance into something I would gleefully read and giggle about to others.
Honestly I don’t even think it’s even the removal of the death thing (like that’s certainly helpful, but you can probably keep it, if you need it for the Drama) that saves it, so much as it is the idea that the problem is caused purely by you not admitting your feelings, rather than the other person not sharing them.
Like, in the standard version of Hanahaki, the point is that the disease is caused by unrequited love, and the afflicted end up coughing up increasingly large amounts of flowers, until either they suffocate or the other person returns their feelings.
A lot of versions do require a confession on top of that, but fundamentally the most important thing is the object of your affections developing specifically romantic feelings for you. Or you die.
As an aro person, I’m sure I don’t need to explain why this trope is uncomfortable for me, considering that it basically paints me as a potential death trap.
Plus some stories also feature ‘The Surgery’, which removes the roots of the flowers from the victim’s lungs, thus saving their life, but in the process makes them incapable of romantic love, which is treated as the highest tragedy.
Chronic Hanahaki on its own would still kind of have this problem, it’s just toning it down a bit— rather than being responsible for your death, your crush is instead just responsible for your continued pain/discomfort and frequent hospital visits. Better, but still kind of icky.
Chronic Hanahaki (that could still be potentially terminal in the long term, if you need extra drama) caused by not saying your feelings aloud, regardless of how the other person feels, on the other hand?
Beautiful. Great metaphor for the real effects that repressing your emotions can have on your body. Lots of dramatic potential.
Like, obviously there’s your bog-standard “I love you but don’t believe that you love me, so I will choose to suffer tragically alone rather than risk making you feel bad for not loving me back” thing that the Hanahaki genre was made for, but there’s room for more here as well.
Especially if you expand it to be about supressed emotions in general, rather than just romantic love.
For example:
The character who is in a relationship, but still has trouble verbalising their feelings sometimes, due to past trauma/mental illness, and thus still experiences recurring bouts of Hanahaki. Their partner who reassures them that it’s okay, that they know they love them, and that if they want to say it then that’s fine, but if they don’t feel they can right now then your flowers are beautiful babe, and that’s fine too.
The character who notices flower petals lying around their kid’s room, and doesn’t understand why their child won’t just tell them who they are in love with, so they can support them in confessing their feelings. Only to find out that their kid has actually been dating their same gender best friend for months now, and the Hanahaki was about coming out to their parent.
The autistic character with alexithymia, who by this point just treats coughing up the occasional flower petal as another, rather annoying autistic trait. “Fuck,” they say, coughing up a blood-stained rose and holding it up for their friends to see. “Anyone got any ideas what this one could be about?”
The polar opposite of the traditional Hanahaki thing. The ever happy, toxic positivity character who will die from the flowers choking their lungs unless they finally admit that they kind of hate you sometimes.
The character at the funeral of a family member they had an extremely dysfunctional relationship with, defiantly coughing their flower petals right onto the grave, and refusing to admit that they felt anything other than dislike or indifference for them deep down, because even now, when they’re dead and gone and it doesn’t matter, “you first, bitch.”
The character who witnessed or was told something that they aren’t supposed to know, and not only has to deal with the secret eating away at them, but also has to come up with more and more reasons for why their Hanahaki isn’t going away, even after they confess all their other secrets.
The character who, upon clearing out the house of a beloved elderly relative who recently died, finds a whole room full of rotting flowers, and is faced with the question of what their relative’s big secret was.
Okay but what if humans and Hanahaki plants were symbiotic?
Hanahaki pollen is like every other germ in our microbiome: they’re just part of our bodies. Everybody is breathing out their unique strain of Hanahaki pollen all the time, spreading it everywhere.
When you’re around your crush, your rising body temperature and hormone concentrations in your saliva make fertile ground for the flowers to bloom. You basically get an allergic reaction to your crush’s pollen that they’re breathing around you.
The flowers encourage you to confess to your crush, partner up, and potentially breed babies that are also excellent hosts for Hanahaki plants. It’s mutualism.
Early on in our evolution, humans realized if they kissed their crush, the Hanahaki flowers would disappear. Your crush’s spit basically gives you antibodies to their specific strain of pollen.
But with modern science, humans realized you don’t actually need your crush to return your feelings snd kiss you back. You can just have them, or someone with a similar physiology, spit in a cup.
So a whole industry sprouts up of Hanahaki antidotes, kind of like allergy meds. If your crush gave you orchid Hanahaki flowers, but they’re already married or whatever, then just pop down to the pharmacy and grab some orchid antidote made from some volunteer’s spit.
You still get the drama of “Oh so-and-so is spitting up cherry blossoms, let’s figure out who they like. Who here is a cherry blossom type?” But there is no pressure for the crush to reciprocate, since the antidote costs as much as a candy bar.
Fighting a leshy was never easy, Eskel generally hated doing so. But, as a witcher, he had no real choice in some fights. Especially not when it wasn’t even a contract but just shitty luck that had him stumbling across a leshy on the way up to Kaer Morhen. After a spectacularly bad year it was the last thing he’d needed. As desperately as he’d wished he could just run away, he knew it wasn’t fair on the others, nor was it right. So he fought, he got injured as he killed the leshy and, to top it all off, the leshy cursed him. Not verbally, not even visibly, but Eskel somehow felt the curse, knew the consequences. It still wasn’t enough to change his mind though, Eskel was determined to suffer the consequences of his actions on his own terms.
To begin with, his injuries were easy enough to hide. Eskel wrapped his own wounds like he would on the Path, he avoided the baths when others were there, focused his training more on the academic side than the physical. For the first week it was easy enough, claiming to be tired from his year. Each and every turn he avoided Lambert. The curse whispered in his mind, his shoulder ached and Eskel was too much of a coward to look at it, even when he could feel that it wasn’t healing right. It didn’t matter though, Eskel knew his fate. A witcher wasn’t made to love or be loved, he was just an abomination who thought he could.
There was no avoiding the issue forever. Especially as the wound festered, the skin around it went from inflamed to hard and…Eskel wanted to call it crusty and not believe it was bark. Only, it wasn’t just a superficial wound. The leshy had pierced deep. Or rather, the wound had spread deeper with time. He could feel it with each move, breathing more laboured as though something was squeezing his lung, burrowing into him without pause. The coughing came shortly after. Small at first and Eskel felt truly rancid, the weird phlegm he brought up seemed like it had sand mixed in it. As inconspicuously as he could, he began to carry around a handkerchief or two which he could cough into. Only, the others began to notice his coughing and attempts at subtlety so questions started being asked. The only thing Eskel could do was hide away. He snarled at anyone who dared approach his room, told Geralt to “fuck off” none too kindly. When Lambert sauntered to his room, Eskel couldn’t bring himself to send him away. Instead, he stayed silent, ignored Lambert’s teasing which turned into frustrated grumblings. Though it was obvious that Lambert was angling for a fight, Eskel couldn’t give it to him. He listened to Lambert grumbled about how Eskel was a coward, a pushover, a cheat at gwent, a lousy sparring partner. In his head, Eskel had to agree with those statements, especially that he was a coward. But he would rather die without Lambert’s pity or disdain at his truth. If Eskel never got rejected then a small part of him would still die with hope in his heart.
Confined to his room, Eskel quickly ran out of things to do. He’d read his books, rearranged his trinkets, even dusted the high corners of the ceiling. There was one thing he could do, which he had been putting off. Especially as it was starting to be difficult to move his arm where the leshy had struck. Sat with his back to his mirror clouded with age, Eskel twisted and slowly peeled off the bandage. It caught on rougher patches but didn’t hurt. Despite knowing what was coming, Eskel still cringed at the sight of green bark covering his back and shoulder. Wincing, he coughed. And coughed. And coughed. It seemed never ending. Hunched over his shaving bowl, Eskel spat out a bright yellow dollop of what could only be pollen caught in mucus. That wasn’t all though, he could feel something in the back of his throat, enough to make him feel like gagging. Clearing his throat, Eskel managed to bring it up enough that he could pull it out with his fingers. A rather crushed and sorry looking flower, shiny with spit was in his hand.
Three days, that was how long it took Eskel to cough up enough flowers to figure it out. They were all light pink or white, some of them had a few minor speckles. Whether those were blood or the colours of the petals was sometimes hard to determine. But, after looking at them wilting and floating off on the wind from his window, Eskel knew what they were. Plum. Lambert’s favourite fruit because of the sweetness, the colour and, though he’d never admit it to anyone, the blossoms. There was an irony to Eskel coughing up the flowers of a plum tree when the one he loved held them dear to his heart. It was akin to having Jaskier coughing up wolf’s bane or Geralt with dandelions and buttercups.
A witcher could go a considerable time without food. Eskel figured the curse would take him before starvation. There was absolutely no way he could leave his room now. His back was all bark, sprouting branches which liked to wiggle around like the appendages of a leshy. More importantly, Eskel’s eyes had changed. Though he used to hate the yellow hue, he now missed it. The mirror was covered up because Eskel couldn’t stand the stranger with green eyes staring back at him from it. The coughing got worse, his breathing a wheeze as roots made their home throughout his body. One morning he woke to a tentacle moving under his skin in his arm. Such a sight had him retching and Eskel could have made a whole bouquet from all the blossoms he brought up.
Shirts stopped fitting him very quickly. Maybe five days into his enforced isolation, Eskel was probably about half tree, half man. In a bitter moment he wondered whether he should have become a pine tree for all the pining he’d done for Lambert. Then again, a plum tree was much more apt. The branches on his back had blossomed and rapidly began to produce fruit. After a brief debate of whether eating his own fruits was considered weird, Eskel decided that the whole situation was beyond the realms of even a witcher’s normal and he bit into the fruit. Lambert would love it. So, with quiet dedication, Eskel harvested his fruits and put them in a bowl. They were going to make a fantastic jam. Shame Eskel wasn’t going to be there to watch Lambert enjoy it.
Deep down, Eskel knew that he didn’t have long left. Not at the rate the curse was taking over his whole body. No longer was he coughing up flowers but the stones of plums. Those hurt, Eskel coughed them up while hunched over, the bark on his back splitting and cracking. The stones had sharp ends which scraped his throat raw. At first he’d thought it was blood that coated the tips but, on closer inspection, it wasn’t red. But it was viscous, so green it was almost black. Eskel punched his mirror in frustration and watched as the dark goop dripped from his split knuckles too. It was blood. But it was no longer his.
Time lost all meaning to Eskel. He’d been in his room, had laid down on his bed and made peace with his fate. There was a lovely bowl full of just ripe plums for the others to find. If they ever came for him. For a while now nobody had even passed his room door, let alone asked him if he was okay. But that was okay, easier for the others for sure. There weren’t many of them left, so they’d miss him because their numbers dwindled, not because they missed Eskel himself. Such thoughts clouded his mind and Eskel could barely twist to cough and spit a plum stone on the ground. It felt like his back was putting down roots into the bed, dragging him back down against his meagre will.
The door burst open. Too drained to move, Eskel would only watch as Lambert stood in the doorway, face scrunched up with rage. That fell away as soon as he saw what Eskel had become. Doing his best to smile, Eskel managed to rasp, “it’s okay” and his tipped his head back, eyes closed. Lambert wasn’t a coward, he’d do what Eskel couldn’t, despite sitting by his fire, poker in the flames for nights on end. The bed dipped and Eskel found himself staring up at Lambert’s frowning face. Licking his dry, bark-like lips, Eskel tried to apologise, tried to make things better. Words got caught in his throat as another stone made a bid for freedom. Warm, strong hands helped him twist and a goo covered plum stone clattered wetly on the ground.
“Who?” Lambert demanded, eyes tight with barely held back agony. “I’ll gut them.”
Squinting up at Lambert, Eskel was stunned to see bloody lips tremble as Lambert broke into a hacking cough. A single purple crocus fell into his palm - Eskel’s favourite. It would have been beautiful if only it hadn’t meant that Lambert loved someone. Eskel felt a spasm go through his body as the leshy’s curse ate away at the last remaining parts of his humanity.
“Go. Be better than me. Be brave,” he managed to gasp.
Face scrunched up in anger, Lambert threw his hands out wide. “I am!” He poked Eskel in the chest and winced at the bark he found. “I realised I didn’t want to die! So I came to tell you, you idiot, that I love you!”
No great gust of wind came, no sudden transformation, no lights. Neither did they float and spin together. Maybe because Eskel hadn’t said anything other than gawp at Lambert.
“I love you too.”
Still nothing. Well, not nothing. Lambert threw himself down onto the bed to hug Eskel. Grumbling, he pulled his face back, a graze along his cheek.
“We need to do something about your skin. It’s crusty with layers of dirt.”
“It’s bark.”
“Same difference.” Lambert gave Eskel’s ungiving chest a poke. “I want your old chest back. It looked like the world’s most divine pillow. I’d break my teeth if I bit this now.” To prove his point, Lambert jabbed the bark again.
Eskel snorted. “I’m sorry. I’ll think really hard and transform into a velvety geranium for you.”
“Or you could just be yourself.” The words were much quieter than Lambert had probably meant. And much more vulnerably earnest. “I kind of fell in love with you, not a tree.”
His eyes strayed to the bowl on the table and frowned. Picking up a plum, he sniffed it and eyed Eskel suspiciously.
“I grew them especially for you,” Eskel replied.”
Snorting, Lambert put it back with a shake of his head. “I’d rather taste something else of yours.”
It was surprisingly difficult to waggle eyebrows when turned into a plum tree leshy of some kind but Eskel still tried. At least it got a laugh from Lambert.
Turning back into a human was a process that took a couple more days. At least they had plums to gain out of the delay. And, come spring, Lambert gleefully presented Vesemir with a large bag of stones from all the plums. Hopefully, in a couple of years, Kaer Morhen would have plum trees to harvest and Lambert could tease Eskel about his plant children.
My friend would not stop talking about some Kiribaku fanfic she read today. I don’t remember all the details but apparently it had something to do with some fictional disease that makes a person cough up flowers that represent the person they love. Needless to say, I was inspired and did some fan art of sad boys with flowers over their faces. The first one is of my best boi
A/N: at no point did i know where this was going, and umm yeah. but a long awaited part two that i hope gets y’all to feel something <3
Flowers started arriving for you two days into your hospital stay. Every day, 8am. Sometimes it was pink and abundant peonies, sometimes sweet and small bouquets filled with lilacs and baby’s breath between. You didn’t know who they were from, but the little notes held poems that lifted your mood for the rest of the day. They helped you forget, for a little while at least, the reason you were in the hospital.
Your mind couldn’t help wandering back to that night. When you found out your long-term boyfriend had fallen for someone else, one of his coworkers. It was like a bucket of ice cold water had been dumped on you. And then came the aftermath.
The tearful confrontation in the car after the party, calling up your friend to stay with her, the shortly thereafter admission to the hospital when you could hardly function. You still refused to get the surgery that would save your shortening life, despite everything you still treasured the near two years you spent with the man that still held your heart in the palm of his hand.
A knock on the door brought you from your misery; it was one of your day nurses, the one that usually brought up your flowers. Today was a mixture of sunflowers, yellow roses, and delphinium. A soft smile tugged your muscles as you took them in, holding them up for a deep smell as you received them.
“You have quite the admirer,” Amy said, relieved that the flowers lifted your mood so much. Most Hanahaki Disease patients withered away in their beds, refusing the life saving surgery and passing away in their sleep from broken hearts and torn lungs.
You hummed. While the flowers were indeed lovely, it still confused you to no end who was sending them. Your friend every day reaffirmed that Jaemin had no idea you were even in the hospital, so it couldn’t be him. You didn’t want it to be anyway, it would just make you more miserable.
“What’s the note today?” Amy asked, peering over the top of the bouquet. You opened the card, silently reading over it first, furrowing your brows more and more.
‘I hope this isn’t out of line, but can I buy you a drink? To replace the one I spilled that night’
-M
“Oh, a hint!” Amy exclaimed after you read it aloud. “So you do know the one sending the flowers.”
You tilted your head. “Not really. Not personally anyway. I think I do know who it is though…” you trailed.
“So? Are you gonna agree to it?”
You lifted a shoulder. “Even if I wanted to, how would I let him know?”
Amy hummed. “Maybe let the flower shop know. They keep track of regular customers, and it seems like he picks the flowers out himself rather than ordering online.”
The next day another bouquet came, but the note was back to the usual poem. There wasn’t any theme to them, like they were selected as if they were his favorites. They were all lovely, as any form of art held a special place in your heart.
You brought up the request first thing when your friend came by for her daily visit. She thought the same as Amy, that you knew him, until you told her about the small incident at the party that night. You thought back on his behavior. He had been very kind, and he had been concerned about your appearance even back then. You wonder if he knew Jaemin.
Regardless, you figured that if you were gonna die in a couple months anyway, what was the harm in meeting ‘M’? So you sent an email to the flower shop with your message, and waited.
The next day, your flowers were late. Amy didn’t bring them in, and every time she came to check on you it was the same. Around noon, a knock let you know it was lunch time. Except, the door opened to a bouquet, behind which fluffy dark brown hair half covered dark brown eyes. It was weird seeing someone again that you’ve only met briefly before. A tentative smile greeted you, to which a corner of your own mouth couldn’t help quirking up with in response. That, and the flowers that made you smile no matter what.
“Hello again,” his deep voice filled the quiet space.
“Hello,” you murmured. You couldn’t take your eyes off his as he walked slowly up to your bedside. You motioned at the chair nearby so he could sit, at the same time he held the flower— daisies, carnations, yellow roses— out to you. The bouquet hit your hand with a hollow sound, as ‘M’ stuttered out an apology.
“O-Oh my gosh I’m so sorry! He-here these are for you.” You watched in fascination as his ears grew a deep red and his eyes fell to your scratchy hospital blanket in embarrassment.
A hand flew to cover your mouth as you giggled. But when he looked back up at you, you cleared your throat and averted your eyes. “Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh at you.”
The silence was a little awkward as neither of you were sure what to say while you stared lovingly down at the flowers. But then he seemed to start. “Oh. My name is Mark by the way. I… hope you don’t mind I brought the flowers myself this time. Or that I’ve been sending them at all,” Mark chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck with his now free hand.
“No I… I like them,” you whispered. “They’ve all been so lovely. Thank you. For sending them. Although I’ll admit I’m not sure why you’ve been doing it.”
Another blush lightly dusted the tops of his ears as Mark shifted subtlety in the chair. “I don’t really know myself, I just thought you were so pretty that night, and then I found out what was going on with your…. boyfriend,” he winced. “I have a friend that works here and while I was visiting him I happened to see you walking the hall with a nurse. The next day I walked by a flower shop and just thought you might like some flowers.” Mark shrugged. “That’s basically it. I hope you didn’t find them creepy, I didn’t really think that far ahead.”
You shook your head. “No, they were lovely. And besides, even if you were a stalker, it’s not like i’ll be here much longer.”
Mark shook his head hard. “Don’t think like that, you’ve still got a while, you don’t know how things might change.”
Your sad smile stabbed Mark through the chest. He wanted to hear your laugh again instead. He scrambled to change the subject. His whole purpose was to make you happy, not remind you of the situation. “I know I offered a drink, but i brought lunch instead. Hope that’s okay?”
On time, your stomach grumbled and you covered it with your hand, and a lightly embarrassing laugh. “That would be fantastic actually. What did you bring? Hospital food isn’t that bad but I’ve been deprived of a real meal for so long.”
Mark started coming every few days at lunch, until it turned into nearly every day. You could tell which days it was gonna be because he brought the flowers himself when he did. They still had poems in the card, and he started sharing with you which books they came from. Quite a few of them had been on your TBR list.
Some days he brought lunch with him, and others he ate the hospital’s food with you. Amy was all too happy to bring up two plates of food those days, and made sure you knew with the wink she sent you when Mark wasn’t looking. You just scoffed and waved her off. The amount of flowers you coughed up hourly hadn’t gone down a bit so you didn’t understand her excitement.
But you did feel better.
You found yourself being cheery for longer, and you even started considering the surgery. Jaemin wasn’t the only good thing the world had. And you were still 100 percent convinced he hadn’t hurt you on purpose. It wasn’t in his nature, never would be. Sometimes you wondered how he was doing, if he might have gotten the disease too after you left. You weren’t sure if you could hold feelings for two people at once, or if the stronger one determined if you got the disease or not. Maybe there was a study on it, but maybe you’d feel better not knowing. Despite it all, you didn’t want him to feel the pain you were going through.
“Do you not have anything else to do during your lunch break?” you asked Mark one day. He’d brought spaghetti from the Italian place you’d wanted to go to for months and months, and it was divine.
“Did… you not want me to come by anymore?” Mark asked carefully. He was avidly staring at his food.
“No! It’s not that at all,” you admitted looking down at your own plate, before looking back at him. All you could see was his brown hair. “It’s just… do you really want to spend all this time with me, when I… when I might not be here by the end of the year?” you asked around the lump in your throat.
You startled as Mark shot to his feet, setting his food aside quickly. You opened your mouth but nothing came out, watching as he walked briskly out the door, shocked by his display. You stared at the closed door, your bottom lip wobbling. Head hung, a tear dripped from your eye onto your food. A loose fist wiped at your tears in shock, hand shaky as you tried to wipe the offending water away.
Your knees came up against your chest as you laid your head down, upset at yourself for upsetting Mark. You hadn’t meant to, you just forgot to bite your tongue sometimes. Now he might not come back.
The creaking door brought your teary eyes up, widened in surprise as Mark walked back inside, his eyes downcast. “Sorry for running out so suddenly, I just- Oh my god why are you crying,” Mark exclaimed, horror written across his face.
A muffled sob escaped from behind your hand but you didn’t take your eyes off him as he rushed to your side, taking your face in his hands. Thumbs wiped the tears from under your eyes as he checked you over before crushing you to his chest. Your arms wrapped tightly around him, as if scared he would leave again.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered into your hair. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, I’m so sorry, I just needed to step outside for a minute,” he frantically explained. “I don’t like hearing you talk like your life is a candle about to go out, and I needed to get some fresh air. I’m so sorry Yn.”
You felt every word against your hair, his hold tightening around you every time a cry escaped your body.Eventually your tears subsided into hiccups, but he kept holding you and stroking your back.
You gasped and pulled away as much as you could in his strong hold when you became aware of how much time had gone by, your head turning to the clock with difficulty. Definitely past the time he should’ve left by now. “You’re late for work!” you cried.
Mark turned to the clock as well, standing silently for a long moment before he shrugged.
“They can do without me for the rest of the day. I’m this late anyway. Look, your food is cold. Are you still hungry? I can have the nurses heat it up,” he offered. The plate and Mark were out the door before you could protest, leaving you more confused than before he’d come back.
When Mark returned, he was kinda quiet, lost in his own thoughts. But you still wanted his company so you didn’t say anything about it. When it came time for your afternoon walk outside, he accompanied you. There was a small garden outside the building that you liked to walk through. The benches half in the sun and half in the shade were your favorite places to spend your time.
A little while into your time outside, Mark loosened up a bit again and started reenacting a Shakespeare skit he’d seen recently while you giggled and clapped your hands. He promised to take you to a play some time in the future, and you found yourself agreeing to go with little hesitation.
The days continued on. Mark spent every lunch with you now, and he’d even met your friend a couple times. Together, the three of you planned a date with your doctors for your surgery. It was a big step, a huge one. Jaemin had once been the entire focus of your life, still was to the extent of your disease. But you had things to look forward to now. You’d never seen Romeo and Juliet in person, and one afternoon as you opened the card to read the day’s poem, a pair of tickets fell into your lap. Your mouth fell open as you looked down at them, unexpected tears gathering in the corner of your eyes.
“I tried to pick a date later in the year so you’ll be recovered but… I hope it’s okay,” Mark said tentatively.
Your lips turned into a pout from uncontrolled emotion. “I love it. Thank you Mark.” You pulled him into a hug, the bouquet and tickets on your lap between you. You laughed as you pulled back to wipe your tears away. “I cant believe I’ll get to go with you. I’m so excited!“
Mark grinned at you as you chattered on about the clips you’d seen on the internet, and what part you thought would be your favorite. You had your favorite moment from reading the story, but seeing it in person was bound to bring out different emotions for different scenes.
Harsh coughing interrupted your thoughts, looking over to find Mark practically doubled over. “Oh my gosh are you okay?” you exclaimed, swinging your legs off the bed to reach over to him.
Mark held up a hand, nodding even as he continued coughing. “Fine, I just need a glass of water,” he wheezed, stumbling out the door. He returned a few minutes later with a sheen of sweat.
“Do you need to see a doctor?” you asked worriedly.
Mark shook his head. “I think it’s just my allergies.” You furrowed your brows but you let it be for the time being. Eventually the whole incident left your brain, especially as your surgery date drew closer and closer.
The day of, Mark showed up with a bouquet of roses. Your face split into a bright smile, a warm feeling spreading through your chest.
Mark watched as your face lit up, his chest feeling light as air for the first time in weeks. Even with the surgery cap on your head you looked as beautiful as ever. The first time he laid eyes on you he thought you an angel, and he swore you got prettier every day, inside and out.
It was no wonder he’d fallen for you.
The relief he felt when you agreed to get the surgery was beyond words. It wasn’t that he thought you’d never love him back without the surgery. He just wanted you to live life without a broken heart once again, and enjoy it. He wanted you to live a long and happy life. And if by the hopeful chance you’d fall for him too… well who was he to complain?
So he kept his own flowers a secret, hiding the way his throat burned when he talked, making jokes that his bladder was small when you realized he left to the bathroom often. He’d kept it quiet for half the time he’d known you, and he could continue to do so for the rest of his life if he had to.
Mark promised to hold your roses for you while you went into surgery, assuring you he’d be waiting for you when you woke up.
Those three hours went swiftly by, so distracted was he on seeing you again he didn’t even cough up his daffodils. In fact, he hadn’t at all that day. He turned that realization over and over in his mind, until the doors opening caught his attention. He rose on leaden legs.
“She’s doing great,” the doctor smiled. “She should be conscious in the next half hour or so, if you’d like to wait for her in the room.”
Mark heard the words, but he wasn’t listening. Blood rushed through his ears as he walked the familiar hall to your room, quietly turning the handle to the door. You lay motionless on the bed, hair combed gently to the sides of your face. Mark’s hand trembled as he brushed a strand off your cheek. As his fingertip stroked your skin, he felt a flower rising up his throat. He stumbled into your bathroom, tears burning the corners of his eyes as he retched up daffodils.
Mark remained knelt by the toilet until the onslaught of flowers ceased. He fell back to rest against the cabinet, an arm over his lifted knee. The bouquet of roses sat an arms reach away, and a tear slid down his cheek. Mark remained that way for a while until he brought himself up on shaky legs to sit by your bedside where he held your hand until your eyes fluttered open.
Mark sat up straighter, the words ‘please let me be wrong, please let me be wrong’ a broken record in his mind. Your eyes found his, and he strained hard to see the spark your eyes always held when he walked into your room with lunch.
His stomach dropped and he felt the clawing of flowers in his throat again, as you uttered your first words.
THIS IMMEDIATELY IMPROVES THE ENTIRE TROPE! I had really disliked Hanahaki because it’s almost like the other person - if they’re a good person - is sorta blackmailed into either having feelings or being responsible for your death which is Not Romantic, but I can totally get down for FEELIGS made into an aggravating physical metaphor that you could potential deal with if you’d either confront them or get therapy or something.
Prof you fucking genius is it seasonal? Like it happens in spring cause the flowers bloom? Imagine it hitting hanahaki season and looking around a room and seeing whose missing, who’s out on sick leave, thr curiosity the DRAMA
This puts the song “I Won’t Say (I’m in Love)” in a completely new light.
And occasionally it just. Clears up. Mysteriously.
And then you get probably-poly people who have too many stems growing at once, and they’ll be fine probably, we have modern medicine for that, but it’s annoying as fuck to deal with.
….and then there’s that one person who seems just fine all through hanahaki season and then late fall comes and PSYCH BRO ACTUALLY THEY HAVE CACTUS BLOSSOMS
I little while ago I made a hanahaki disease rant post and I now bring you my second edition except it’s more a question/disscution post:
Do you think it would be possible to get hanahaki disease multiple times? Does the disease count for every kind of unrequited relationship a person will ever be in? Because if so, and adding to that in most fanfics this disease has been with humanity for a long ass time, wouldn’t humans eventually evolve to being able to still live with it plaguing them? Eventually, wouldn’t it just cause most people to reject to idea of socializing if they have a family history of catching this disease?
I think a lot of people forget how hanahaki disease would work. Like, it’s a disease you get because of unrequited love right? So like, why do people always write stories with it where it’s not unrequited, the other person just has yet to admit their feelings.
Like, unrequited love means the other person doesn’t love you like that.
I want to see fucking long slow burns involving this where the character suffering from it has to try and get the other character to fall in love with them.
Also, why does it have like such a short window to kill you? Like, if to get rid of it the other person has to love you, why would it take so little time to just make you do the not alive?
I do want to say though; the idea of getting the flowers removed medically through surgery but the backlash is not being able to ever have romantic feelings for that one person ever again is fucking, *mwah* chefs kiss!
I couldn’t help myself. Our brainstorming conversations inspired me to do an art loosely based on your WIP Hanahaki fic. I thought it came out pretty neat and cool.
